An Evergreen couple won
a $10.5 million judgment Friday against
the local chapter of the Anti-Defamation
League and its
director after he publicly accused them of
anti-Semitism in 1994. The award, handed
down by a federal court jury, was the
latest chapter in a six-year battle
pitting William and Dorothy "Dee"
Quigley against their neighbors,
Mitchell and Candice Aronson. "It's
an astonishing verdict in light of the
apparent mutual rancor of the neighbors,"
said Denver attorney Scott
Robinson, an analyst for the
Denver
Rocky Mountain
News. "From the
outside looking in, one would have thought
most jurors would have not given a whit
for the claim of defamatory statements, in
light of everything that occurred between
those two couples."

The jury found in favor of the Quigleys
in their civil rights suit against the
Anti-Defamation League and the director of
its Mountain States office, Saul
Rosenthal. "We were surprised and
shocked by their interpretation of the
facts of the case," Rosenthal said Friday
evening. Jay Horowitz, the
Quigleys' attorney, said the couple sought
vindication. "We got it," he said. The
Quigleys and the Aronsons lived two houses
away from each other in an exclusive
Evergreen neighborhood. Their dispute
began with dueling complaints about dogs.
At one point the Quigleys suspected the
Aronsons of stealing decorative rocks from
their yard.

The battle escalated to the point where
the Aronsons, using a scanner,
tape-recorded phone conversations in which
Dee Quigley was accused of calling Candice
Aronson a "f-- -- New York Jew" and, in
apparent references to the Holocaust,
spoke of painting an oven door on the
couple's house and tossing lampshades and
bars of soap on their lawn. She also spoke
of burning the Aronsons' home and dousing
their children with gas, according to
court testimony. The Aronsons accused the
Quigleys of trying to run them out of the
neighborhood because they were Jewish and
sought help from the Anti-Defamation
League and Rosenthal. At a press
conference in December 1994, Rosenthal
called the Quigleys "anti-Semitic."

The fight included hate crime charges
against the Quigleys that were later
dropped and a $75,000 payment from
Jefferson County to fend off a lawsuit
from the couple. The couples also sued
each other and their original attorneys.
In court this month, Horowitz claimed the
Quigleys' reputation and dignity were
damaged by the Aronsons' claims. William
Quigley's career in the movie industry was
damaged by the accusations leveled by
Rosenthal, according to court proceedings
this week. Dee Quigley testified that she
regretted her comments, made during talks
with a friend on a cellular telephone, and
that they were meant in jest. Horowitz,
the Quigleys' attorney, said after the
jury's verdict Friday that the couple
would not comment.

Barry Curtiss-Lusher, chairman
of the Anti-Defamation League's board,
said he was "very disappointed in the
verdict." "We believed we were doing the
right thing when we acted to protect a
Jewish family," he said. The organization
was formed in 1913 to stop the defamation
of Jewish people and to fight
discrimination and bigotry.

Curtiss-Lusher said the group will
continue to support Rosenthal, "who is one
of the best in this city or anywhere else
in fighting for what he believes and what
we believe." He and Rosenthal said they
and their attorneys will consider an
appeal. Rosenthal also said the verdict
will not stop his work. "We will continue
to speak out against prejudice,
discrimination and anti-Semitism wherever
and whenever we see it," he
said.